Why Value and Arbitrage Opportunities Occur in Sports Betting

You want to define assets that are undervalued. So, how do you do that? How do you identify value in sports betting markets?

The thing about sports betting markets is that they offer different prices or different odds on the same outcomes occurring.

In the stock market, you would only find one price for a final Tesla stock in the market, while in sports betting markets, you can find a bunch of different bookmakers who are offering different odds on Manchester United winning.

This means that there are opportunities out there that are exploitable because some of these bookmakers are better at calculating their odds than others.

So, by identifying which bookmakers are the most precise, it is possible to identify value, and that is what we are doing at Trademate.

We have an automated service that looks for these deviations and identifies value. Now, there are a bunch of other tools out there that can help you as a sports trader. Arbitrage betting or sure bets have been around for a long time.

But at Trademate, we are more focused on value betting, so we only take one side of the game, while in an arbitrage bet, you are trying to take all the three different outcomes and have the overall odds to be high enough to guarantee that you'll make a profit independent of the outcome.

On the other hand, in a value bet or what we also refer to as a sports trade, you will only take one side of the game. That means that the potential risk is higher than in a sure-bet.

But also, the potential winnings are a lot higher because in a sure-bet you can expect to have an ROI of 1% or 2% max, unless you're really lucky.

Value bets occur a lot more frequently and they are also more difficult for the bookmakers to notice.

In the case of sure-bet, because there have to be significant deviations on all three outcomes of the game, they occur not as often as value bets, and also, it is a lot easier for the bookmakers to spot arbitrage bettors or “arbers” as they are called, compared to value betters.

We’ve also made a video about this topic. We actually made a whole series of videos about sports trading, which you can find them on YouTube.

Alternatively, you can read this article, which shows an example from a FA cup game between Chelsea and Manchester City.

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